Nanoor - Nanoor Massacre

Nanoor Massacre

On 27 July 2000, CPI(M) activists allegedly killed 11 landless agricultural labourers in Suchpur, near Nanoor and under Nanoor police station. Just after the massacre CPI(M) leaders said those killed were dacoits but a few days later they admitted that the dead were landless farmers and that they were killed over a land dispute. Two of the CPI(M)'s senior leaders, Anil Biswas and Biman Bose, both politburo members, condemned the Nanoor killings as well as the loss of lives in incidents of violence in the preceding weeks.

The Hindu wrote, “On a long term, the killings, symbolising the birth of a new theatre of violence after Keshpur in district Midnapore - where deaths and maiming in political clashes have become a bizarre routine - constitute an extremely disturbing augury for the society in Bengal."

The prime witness to the Nanoor killings was injured in an attack allegedly by CPI-M activists.The Statesman in an editorial wrote, “The sole purpose in attacking the prime witness in the gruesome Nanoor massacre of July 2000 in which 11 Trinamul Congress supporters were slaughtered by armed CPI(M) cadres was to shield those responsible and abort their trial, by hook or by crook. The irony is that although five years have elapsed since the occurrence of the horrendous killings by the Marxists, the trial of their 79 accused comrades has not yet begun. Repeated postponement of hearing (at least seven in the last two years) because of failure of the accused to turn up in court has made the outcome uncertain.”

The Nanoor area has continued to be turbulent, with political clashes and murders continuing. On the basis of a FIR (first information report) lodged with the police against CPI(M) men, the police made arrests and in August 2001 they submitted charge sheets against 82 accused. The trial started in 2000 and continued for eight years. The court verdict is expected in November 2010.